


Clothes Make the Man

by tracinginthesand



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brief discussion of poverty, Brief memory of bullying, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Dysphoria, Identity Issues, Longing, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Shopping, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve needs a new wardrobe, bad memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/pseuds/tracinginthesand
Summary: Wherein Steve Rogers gets a new wardrobe, and discovers some things about himself.





	Clothes Make the Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Livvy1800](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy1800/gifts), [msxylda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msxylda/gifts).



**Monday**  

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?” Steve demands. He stares at Pepper and Natasha in the flat way he usually reserves for people betraying their country.

“Your wardrobe could use some updating,” Pepper says. She gives it another beat, during which he says nothing. He’s gotten good at saying nothing. Sometimes it makes the problem go away. “If it’s a question of money—”

“It’s a _question_ of my goddamn life!” He doesn’t realize he’s yelled until Pepper’s eyes go wide and Natasha actually takes a step towards her. At a loss, he mutters an apology and walks away, slumped into himself.

Bruce finds him on the terrace, a hundred stories above Manhattan, about an hour later. Steve is sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up in a right-angle corner made out of glass. Transparent aluminum, technically, according to Tony. Bruce gives the transparent flooring a wary look. Steve manages a small shadow of a smile.

“Really committed to your grandpa clothes, huh?” Bruce says, leaning on the railing. The wind rustles him, he tips his face towards the sun. Steve likes looking at Bruce. The shadow of the Hulk makes him solid. Comforting. There are monsters in the world, and some of them are on his side.

“You grew up poor, right?” Steve asks. Bruce doesn’t talk about his childhood much, but certain things get around.

“Some kids had it easier than me,” Bruce allows.

“New clothes were unheard of,” Steve says. “Everything we got was charity. I wore Bucky’s old clothes all through high school, and I mean his _old_ clothes, I was so small. I never owned a suit. I went to my own mother’s funeral in slacks and a plaid shirt, because that’s all I had. It was humiliating. The Army was the first place everything fit, and there were no choices. And then I got big, and everything fit better, but nothing fit _me_. So here I am. I don’t know how to pick out clothes. I don’t know what fits me. What sizes mean now. I’ve never chosen clothes in my whole life.” He rolls his shoulders.

Bruce nods. “I got into clothes when I got my stipend, in my PhD program. All these people, groaning about how little they had, and I was rolling in it. It was more money than I had ever seen in a bank balance at once. I still remember the first shirt I bought. It was this creamy green linen, a little bit like the color of key lime pie filling. It meant something. The thrill never really goes away.”

“Is that why you let Tony take you shopping so much?”

The grin, the ducked head. Steve is so fond of Bruce it makes him a little fond of Tony. “It can be nice to get fussed over,” Bruce says. “They care about you. They want you to be comfortable. They want you to feel good about yourself.”

Steve stares out over the city, this place that has always meant magic for him, even when he was a kid staring out at the lights of Manhattan across the East River. “I never have. I doubt that’s going to start with clothes.”

Bruce shrugs. “So pretend. Try. The thing about clothes, if you have the money—and you do, now—is they’re a constant reinvention. Try things on.”

Steve thinks about that for a long time.

 

**Tuesday**

“How do you even get these _up_?” Steve mutters, mostly to himself.

“They aren’t even skinny jeans,” Natasha says, from outside the dressing room. Torture chamber. Potayto, potahto. “Don’t be such a baby.”

“I grew up during the Depression, and I’m telling you, we still had enough fabric for a decent pair of pants,” he retorts, moving his hips in completely unfamiliar ways to get the band up over his ass, and then—

“You got me the wrong size, Natasha. These don’t come up to my waist. You can see my—hey!” Natasha stands in front of him, the curtain yanked to the side. Beyond her, Pepper is sitting on a rough-hewn bench in the changing area at Levi’s flagship store in SoHo. It’s after-hours, and normally Steve would be uncomfortable with the special treatment, but like hell does he want to do this with strangers around.

“No, that’s right,” she says, standing aside so that Pepper can see. “They’re supposed to fit like that.”

 “They barely come up over my hips.” Steve gestures meaningfully at his lower belly. “You can see my—”

 “Come gutters, yeah. You’ve got a body, Steve.”

 “You are a disgrace.”

 “I’m also a murderer, what’s your point? Try them in black.”

 “Clothes are supposed to cover a person,” he mutters. “You can see the outline of my dick in these.”

“That’s true in all pants, Steven,” she sings out. He grits his teeth.

She doesn’t get it, he thinks. Doesn’t get the shame of it, of always being exposed, of feeling eyes on you, people ready to laugh, or point, or God forbid, yank—he’s caught in a memory of changing after gym class one rare day when Bucky was out sick, and his stomach roils. He leans his head back against the wall of the dressing room. _Bucky would love this_ , he thinks, mostly as a way of distracting himself. _Bucky would be so happy right now_.

Bucky would love the low waists and the t-shirts that feel no thicker than onion skin and the feel of tight, crisp denim scraping up his thighs. Bucky would get himself the tailored leather jacket cut close to his body, skimming down to his hips. He would grow his hair long, Steve imagines. Long and curling, because he hated getting it cut, even when he was a kid. Bucky would understand vests, Bucky would make Steve feel good about how he looked. Bucky always could, somehow.

That galvanizes him. The black jeans go on without a hitch. He looks at himself like Bucky would. Sees the definition in his body. He hears a stir outside, a low voice, and pokes his head out in case it’s one of the salespeople wanting them to close up shop. But it’s Thor, hair tugged back into a half ponytail, looking—as Steve now thinks of it, through Bucky’s eyes—dashing in loose, calf-high boots, slouchy jeans tucked into the tops, a tight t-shirt and a…vest? over all of it. He has a jacket over his shoulder and a leather messenger bag across his chest.

“Steven!” Thor says, smiling wide. “You look marvelous.”

Steve almost blushes. “See,” he growls at Natasha. “No need to bring ‘come gutters’ into it.” She shrugs, still with that mercenary light in her eyes. He suddenly understands the division of labor. Natasha is the strong arm, Pepper knows what to wear, and Thor knows how to dress a body that is too big.

It’s even fun, after a while. They go to a succession of upscale department stores whose names he remembers from the longing on the lips of all the women he grew up around. Saks. Bloomingdale’s. Bergdorf’s. Neiman Marcus. He fights them on almost everything, although he loves the flannel shirts nipped in at the waist and the cableknit sweaters that make him feel cozy. The henleys and the yoga pants that feel like cream. He thinks Bucky would have loved it on him. He buys a stack of gray and blue t-shirts, and then one in every color, just because he can. He buys out Underarmor’s entire line in his size. He does not look at the receipts.

He tries to draw the line at the dusty blue t-shirt with the giant Shield on it, but Thor just holds up his keychain, with its little Mjolnir dongle, and Steve has to laugh. The leather jacket—bomber style, sorry, Bucky—and the thick zip-up hoodies. An honest-to-God briefcase, black leather and with a sheen. His initials stamped into it right there. It kicks him in the chest, the idea that these things are his. Pepper’s hand curves over his wrist, and he’s horrified by the tears in his eyes when he looks at her.

“You’re okay,” she tells him, smiling a little, fairy godmother to them all with her spine of steel and her gentleness.

A few of the things he picks out surprise all of them. A silk button-down shirt, dark blue and almost sheer. A white button-down with embroidery on one shoulder, trailing down his back in trailing leaves and blossoms. A scarf, narrow, light gray cashmere with deep fringe. They don’t know, and he doesn’t say, that these are clothes for Bucky. For his memory, Steve will get a newsboy cap, because some things really don’t go out of style. For Bucky, Steve will wear clothes that skim his too-big body too closely, will think about what it would feel like to have Bucky’s eyes on his skin as it’s covered by some of these clothes.

He will discover he likes the luxuriousness of being able to pick out whatever he wants more than he cares about wearing what he buys. That Bruce is right, clothing is an opportunity for daily invention. And Steve is a blank slate to himself, always waiting for the combination that will make him see Bucky’s laughing eyes in the back of his mind.

So it’s a shame that the first time he sees Bucky on that rooftop in DC, he’s wearing chinos and a white t-shirt and a dowdy dark blue jacket, because he's been dressing better for Bucky all this time. But, he thinks later, hazily, while Bucky is punching him over and over in the face on the dying helicarrier, maybe in his new duds, in the black jeans and thin silk shirt, in the clothes he feels most himself in when he’s out of uniform, maybe Bucky wouldn’t have recognized him at all.

Maybe someday he will. Maybe someday Steve will take him out, and they can become the versions of themselves they promised each other, late at night, all those years ago.

 


End file.
